Friday, December 25, 2009

Very merry

The holidays are always sort of strange to me. I'm Jewish, so we never celebrated Xmas, though Hanukkah was a very big deal growing up, complete with eight (count 'em! 8!) gifts. The first Christmas I really adored was my first year in Manhattan. My friend Beth, who lived across the hall, came to my tiny apartment and we made a sea bass with black bean sauce (I wasn't a full-out vegetarian then), which we promptly burned, then we went out all day to movies, crashed a party, and came back home and watched movies all night long. I loved it. My worst was also in New York City, when someone I had loved had died, and I was alone, and the city had emptied out of all my friends. Again, I turned to the movies, going until two in the morning, me and the other disenfranchised in the city! I would have kept going but I chose the wrong movie, a really tragic one, and I ended up crying in the theater, walking home at two, crying, and crying the rest of the night in my apartment.

These days, holidays are with my funny husband and funny son and if you think I don't count my blessings about how lucky I am every second, you'd be wrong. We've been seeing movies, hanging out, going to a movie in about two hours, and hanging out some more. And tomorrow, we go to Boston to see my mother and Jeff's cousin and his family.

I haven't written as much as I have wanted to, but I'm thinking, thinking, thinking, and I'm gearing up for 2010. I have a novel coming out in August, I just finished a script, I'm writing another novel. There's this feeling that anything could happen.

Sort of like when you think you see reindeer in the sky.

Magic, anyone? Maybe the trick is to make your own magic, and then spread it around.
Happy end of 2009 everyone.

11 comments:

  1. Happy end of 2009 to you too Caroline!!

    Here's hoping that 2010 is full of dreams come true for all of us!!

    Much love,
    Gina :)

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  2. Just found Girls in Trouble. Kicked me around a bit and now searching franticaly for anything you have written. Amazing, distrubing, brilliant writing.
    Merry Chanukah and please tell me as soon as the new one can be pre-ordred. Some of your books are rather hard to find.

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  3. Lilirose, I am so glad to hear from you! Thank you so much, (I love the adjective disturbing!) Try ebay for the older one-some are as cheap as a dollar!

    The new one, Pictures of You, will be out in August. Thank you, so, so much. x C

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  4. 2010 does seem like a year chock full of infinite possibility, doesn't it?

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  5. I was catching up on Billy Mernit's blog, touched some magic key, passed through someone else's blog at UCLA and ended up here. Amazing.
    A belated Happy Holidays, and an early Happy New Year.
    See you January 10th.
    Adverbless, with no exclamation marks in Montreal.
    Frank

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  6. Hey there, loveliness, happy twenty-ten!

    Lilirose, read them all...you have such wonderful gifts awaiting you.

    Smooches, V.

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  7. I am reading them all!
    In the last two weeks I have read
    Living Other Lives and Coming Back To Me and am on another. I love this woman's writing and although one can always get a flavor of who the author "is", in these novels I am feeling a real connection....curly red-headed Jewish women hanging out in Squirrel Hill (or maybe because I am a curly-redheaded Jewish woman who grew up there...) It feels, often, as if I am reading a whole work rather than isolated novels. I love her writing! And for me, finding an author I love is a tremendous gift! I have found many but never enough.
    The character of Lilly really stays with me. Finding the older books has not been easy - but worth it. Love you Caroline!

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  8. Lilirose, I lived in Shadyside for about 8 years! On Howe Street! I wonder if we ever saw one another. I used to hang out in Squirrel Hill all the time, too. And THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

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  9. when? Howe Street! Had a friend with an apt. there. My name is Sherry Harvey and I am a crazy red-head who ran a PR Firm in the Arts. I was EVERYWHERE! You even look familiar to me. I did all the arts in the city - theater, books, radio etc (although I am actually a therapist with a serious hoo doo practice...completely blew my mind that Lilly was a psychic - goodness help all of us crazy Jewish women - even those such as myself that recently tried to flush it with a conversion...that didn't take)
    How funny! I'll bet I know you! What years were you there? Di you remember the wonderful Sq. Hill Book Store before it was eaten by B&N?

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  10. oh - you are welcome
    thank YOU!
    you are brilliant!

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